How to make the best Cassoulet you've ever tasted

Peasant food in one country can be a gourmet dinner in another. All it takes is one or two expensive ingredients, and lots of time. Reckon on about three days to make a memorable cassoulet.

First, buy dried haricot beans. Cassoulet is basically pork and beans, and you must use the correct beans. You can tell whereabouts they should be in the local Tesco by the puzzled Frenchman standing there, talking into his mobile phone.

"Zey sell only butter beans, I think - is ok? No?"

No. So you get back in the car and go to Waitrose instead, and so does he.

You need about 400g of dried beans for four people. Buy a 500g packet, and throw some in the bin. This isn't compulsory, of course - you could keep the spare beans until they go bad and then throw them away, or you could use them instead of confetti at a wedding, if you happened to be going to one. Or you could fire them through a peashooter at the neighbour's cat. Or you could just chuck them in with the rest, which is what I did. Someone might be hungry.

If the beans came out of a sack in the health food shop, pour them onto the table and sift through them to pick out the healthy grit and small stones, then wash off the dust. When you're satisfied they're safe to eat, put your beans in a stockpot and cover them with cold water. Put the bowl somewhere out of the way for twelve hours or so. Or, according to another recipe, bring them to the boil, cover, remove from the heat and leave them for an hour or so.

It's the beans you want, not the liquid. In the Languedoc they use this liquid as a stain remover, so don't drink it!. Pour it down the drain! Then add another two or three pints of water and a little salt, and bring to the boil again.

Right, you now have a pot full of soggy beans. That's the first step. Now you need some lumps of MEAT! One recipe says: half a pound (200g) of blanched streaky bacon, a pound (450g) of pork loin, a pound of shoulder of mutton, and six ounces (200g) of garlic sausage (in a lump - not sliced ready for sandwiches). Another adds 350g of 'preserved goose' ('Confit d'Oie' - it comes in tins). Another includes a lump of roast pork. Any red meat will probably do.

Now it's nearly time to mix all the flavours together.

Simmer the bacon and beans for an hour with lots of garlic, then drain, keeping the juice.

Roast the pork.

Stew the mutton in wine with chopped tomatoes and herbs.

When the mutton is ready, put the stewing juices into the beans for a while.

Cut up all the meat, including garlic sausage, into bite-sized chunks, and stir it carefully into the beans.

Cover with breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for another hour.

Then eat it. Yum, yum.

* * *

You may have noticed that all this takes an extremely long time. Reckon on 5 or 6 hours of hard work. This is because cassoulet is actually three good dinners and a light lunch, all in the same pot. But it doesn't really matter if it takes several days to cook, because you can always let the pot go cold and then re-heat it.

To make life easier, here is a detailed recipe based on the one in 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and scaled for four people. In essence, per person you need roughly 100g of beans, a tomato, 100g of pork, 100g of mutton, 50g of bacon, 50g of sausage and 10g of breadcrumbs.

It's difficult to buy a pound of pork loin, so I bought a kilo and cut it in half. Next time I'll roast both pieces at the same time, and we'll eat one for dinner that night. It also makes sense to cook the mutton at the same time as the pork, but this would involve changing the preparation sequence.

--- On Thursday afternoon:

1. Prepare the pork - overnight

Buy a pound of boned pork loin.

Cut off the excess fat and put it on a plate in the fridge (for #6).

Get the mortar. Put in 2 peppercorns, half a teaspoon of sage and a bit of bay leaf. Grind them together.

Mix in a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of allspice and half a mashed garlic clove.

Rub the mixture into the surface of the pork.

Put the pork in a covered bowl in the fridge overnight (for #3).

2. Soak the beans - overnight

Find a big pot.

Drop in a pound (500g) of dried haricot beans.

Add enough cold water to more than cover the beans. Stir.

!Warning! - the beans double in volume as they soak up the water.

Cover the pot and put it in the pantry overnight.

--- On Friday:

3. Fry the pork - 15 minutes

Heat the oven to 160 degC.

Get the marinated pork from the fridge.

Dry it thoroughly or it will spit in the hot fat.

Get a roasting pot.

Cover the bottom with oil, and heat until it's almost smoking.

Brown the pork on all sides, then put it on a plate.

Pour all but 2 spoons of fat out of the pot, and keep it (for #12).

4. Roast the pork - 1 hour

Get a small onion and carrot.

Slice them thinly and put them in the pot.

Add a clove of garlic.

Add 2 parsley sprigs, a quarter teaspoon of thyme and a bit of bay leaf.

Cover the pot and cook slowly for 5 minutes.

Put the pork back into the pot, fatty side up.

Heat the pot until the pork is sizzling.

Cover the pot and put it in the bottom of the oven for an hour.

(- aim for a meat thermometer temperature of 85 degC.)

Baste the pork with the cooking juices after half an hour.

Take out the pork and put it on a plate (for #12).

Mash the vegetables into the juice, and keep it (for #11).

--- Whilst the pork is roasting:

5. Prepare the beans - 1 hour plus

Get the pot with the soaked beans out of the pantry.

Drain off the water and pour it away.

Put 1.8 pints (1 litre) of water into a really big saucepan and bring it to the boil.

Drop in the soaked haricot beans.

Bring the water back to the boil for 2 minutes. A huge froth forms.

Remove from the heat and let the beans soak for an hour.

Drain, and throw away the water.

--- Whilst the pork is roasting and the beans are soaking:

6. Prepare the pork fat - 1 hour

Put a quarter of a pound (100g) of fresh pork rind in another pan.

Cover with three-quarters of a pint (400ml) of cold water.

Bring to the boil for 1 minute.

Drain, then rinse in cold water.

Repeat, with clean water.

Use scissors to cut the fat into little triangles about 5mm on a side.

Add another 400ml of cold water and bring to the boil.

Simmer very slowly for half an hour.

--- When the beans are ready:

7. Mix the bacon and beans - 5 minutes

Add the cooked pork fat and its liquid (#6) to the beans in the big pan.